Manifestation article

A Psychic Wish™ is like cosmic ordering made easy. You tell me what it is you're trying to order from the universe, and I psychically find out how you can best receive it. Send one now.

With Moon Cycle Manifestation coming up on Monday, I thought I'd re-post an article I wrote about manifestation in January. Some of my views have changed slightly since then, and I have learned additional techniques, but I believe this is still a useful manifestation primer.

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My Relationship With the Universe

The first time I ever manifested something, without knowing what I was doing, I was nine years old. I was going to be a clown in a school play that I was really excited about. The day before the play I came down with the flu. Normally whenever I got the flu, I would be sick for about two or three days. If I was going to be sick for that long this time, I would have missed the play. So I decided to be better the next day. And miraculously, I was.

The most important thing I ever manifested was my greencard. After having been an exchange student for a year, I knew that I wanted to live in California for the rest of my life. The first time I entered the greencard lottery, I won.

In 2001 I was unemployed for almost four months. My friend Starrie told me to manifest a new job by writing down what I wanted in one sentence in capital letters, then crossing out all the letters that repeated and then using all remaining letters to draw one interconnected symbol. The sentence I wrote was "I will use Flash at my next job." A month or so later I had a new job as a Flash developer.

I have been manifesting all my life but I never really knew what I was doing. Because of that, it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. But for the last six months or so, I have been paying better attention and been really trying to improve my actualization factor.

In July my aunt Inge sent me the book Bestellungen beim Universum. (The English version is called The Cosmic Ordering Service.) Bärbel Mohr tells us that not only can you order from the universe what you want but you can even specify a delivery date/time:

1. Make your order in a way in which you feel comfortable. You don't need to get all ritualistic like with a full moon or candle light. I usually just close my eyes and think something like "I want to find the perfect fuzzy green sweater by February 21."

2. Always use positive statements for your orders. Apparently, the universe doesn't understand "no" or "not" or "without." If you say "I don't want to get sick," the universe will hear that you want to get sick.

3. Do not repeat the order. Ordering it once is enough. The universe heard you the first time. If you repeat it, you are sending a message of mistrust to the universe when the key to success is trust and faith.

4. Don't think about it. This is the hardest part. It takes practice.


For a while I carried the book everywhere I went. It was my little cosmic bible. There were disappointments though. Not all of my manifestations came true. The secret to manifestation is to set your intention (in your head or by writing it down) and then to forget about it. If you keep reminding the universe by thinking stuff like "Where is it? When is it coming?" it will not come. You have to release it. That's what I was having a really hard time with. If I want it really badly, how could I let it go?

In September I took a manifestation workshop. Yes, I paid money to learn to manifest better. The woman that taught the workshop, Zen Kloppenburg, was very inspiring. She said that she had everything she wanted and needed and that she had never felt this good for this long, all through manifestation. According to this course, you manifest like this:


1. State your desire.

2. Believe that it will come true.

3. Feel good no matter what.

4. Be ready to receive it. This is the trickiest part. I will get back to this further below.


There was one thing I liked better about her workshop than about the Cosmic Ordering Service. When I told her that I was having a hard time with the letting go part, she said "Don't focus on letting go. Just keep feeling good."

Less than a week after taking the manifestation workshop, I saw the movie What the Bleep Do We Know. What I got out of the movie was that there is scientific evidence (in quantum physics) that thoughts can directly affect matter. When the movie talked about how light in weight molecules are and how easy it must therefore be to shift around energy, I started to feel physically dizzy. After that there was no turning back. I was a believer. I was a believer in the things you cannot see. I was a believer in my own power to change my life to what I want it to be. [Listen to me. Am I almost ready to write a self help book or what?]

Was I immediately a master of manifestation? Hell no. There were a few occasions where my practice backfired terribly, and I felt amateurish and humiliated and almost stopped believing. But now I know that I was just not doing it right. I did not yet have a good grasp on Zen's point 4, the receiving part. But after a few additional months of practice, I think I now have a better understanding of how it all works and how to make manifestation work for me. Here are some of the things I have learned, many of them the hard way:

- Even though Zen says it's not necessary, you absolutely have to let go. If you tense up and are too attached, it won't come true. This also means that you will have to release any anger associated with the thing you want or the current lack thereof.
- Your desire for the thing you're trying to manifest cannot be stronger than your desire for your life without the thing, i.e. want what you have and you will get what you want.
- You cannot need it desperately; otherwise the universe will only read lack and it will give you lack in return.
- Don't go out of your way to make it happen. Stay on your way and it will come to you. This is why I only ran into cute art school bicycle boy twice and then never again: I tried to make the third time happen by purposely leaving work at a certain time; of course I didn't see him that day or anytime after that.
- Don't send out reminders (as Bärbel Mohr already mentioned) or start a countdown. If you have already expressed your desire to, for example, find a cool new roommate, don't think two weeks later "I want to find my new roommate TODAY." It won't work. Or, if you tried to manifest to have a new boyfriend by, say, April, don't think stuff like "three more weeks, two more weeks" etc. This kind of thinking practically guarantees that it will not happen.
- You will most likely not be able to manifest things regarding a specific existing person. It is much harder to directly influence another person's will than to set in motion more general energies, not tied to a specific person. After all, if you're getting what you want, does it really matter who it's coming from?
- You have to really want it from the heart. If the desire comes from your ego or from societal expectations, for example, you don't truly want it and probably won't get it.

I know that some of these rules are frustrating and contradictory. They bring up questions like "So if I really need something, I won't get it? Then what good does manifestation do me?" or "Are you saying that if I am looking for a new job, I should stop looking and just let it find me?" These are questions everyone will have to answer for themselves. You will have to develop your own relationship with the universe. But it is very important and universally applicable to relax, appreciate what you have now, and trust that you will get what you want in time. It may take some time to figure out your own approach.

I have been dabbling with manifestation for a while now, but I have been hesitant to write about it. One of the reasons was that it all sounds more woo woo and new age-y than I really want to be. But screw it. Everybody needs something to believe in. And really, manifestation is nothing but using common sense and taking responsibility for your own life. The other reason for my hesitation was that many of my own manifestations were failing miserably. But like I said, I am getting the hang of it. For the past two weeks, just about everything I manifested has, well, manifested. So I thought I'd share what I have learned so far about getting yourself ready to receive. And now I am also going to share some of my coolest recent manifestations-turned-realities.

1. One day I was on my way to hooping. As I was driving I thought "I want there to be a cute boy at hooping today, and I want us to have a conversation." This was a long shot because a) there are hardly ever any new people at hooping, especially not cute boys and b) I was ten minutes away from the place where we were hooping - doesn't the universe need more time than that? Well, the cute boy did show up. It was actually somebody I had met before and had been hoping to run into again. He was not even a hooper.
2. This Wednesday morning I thought "I would like a really cool opportunity for a project to come my way today." That afternoon I got an email from Jane titled "sxsw." Jane is doing an HTML vs. ActionScript panel at SXSW Interactive, and one of her ActionScript developers just cancelled. She asked me if I would like to fill in. I would get a free pass to SXSW Interactive. So yeah, I'm going to Austin for SXSW this year! And my company is even paying for my hotel; all I have to pay for is the flight. The cool thing about this is that I had just mentioned to a friend about a month ago that I would really like to visit Austin one day.

Sure, the skeptic and rationalist in me says that it's all just coincidence, and that all these rules I have set up for myself are really just there to allow for error, to excuse failures, and to maximize the probability that a coincidence will happen. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that when I ask for something and four hours later the universe gives it to me, I feel really powerful, even if it's coincidence. And that feels really really good.

And you know what? You would not believe the amazing parking spots I have been getting since I started manifesting them. After 9am, it is practically impossible to find a parking spot within three blocks of the building in which I work. But lately I have been finding parking spots that are ONE BLOCK AWAY at 10am or even 11am. So my advice to you: Try it with little things. Shoot for that awesome parking spot, and if you get it, start dreaming big.
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Originally posted on The Subastral Lilipad, January 8, 2005